Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Currently when renewing or newly registering with the BPC, we require Registrants to agree to commit to undertaking a minimum of 15 clinical hours and 15 general hours of CPD throughout the calendar year (January – December), rather than the registration year (April – March).

As a regulator, and given we are responsible for quality assuring the Fitness to Practise of the Registrants on our public register, the BPC randomly audits 5% of our Registrants each year to check that the CPD requirements are being met. Registrants selected for audit will be notified in May and asked to complete and return a CPD audit form to declare their CPD hours from January – December of the previous year.

There are currently exceptions to these minimum hours of CPD:

• Newly registered – Where a Registrant has joined part way through the year the hours will on a pro-rata(ed). e.g., a Registrant who joined in July would be required to record a minimum of 7½ hours each of Clinical and General CPD.
• Supervisory and teaching – A minimum of 5 clinical hours and 15 general hours of CPD is required.
• Pre-retirement – A minimum of 5 clinical hours and 15 general hours of CPD is required.
• Deferred – CPD is not required for deferred registrants.
• NHS only – From 1 April 2022 NHS only category Registrants will need to meet the same CPD requirements as full registrants, a minimum of 15 clinical hours and 15 general hours of CPD. This is a change to help registrants request that the NHS offer and deliver CPD to meet your requirements. We welcome any feedback on this change to help better assist NHS only registrants.

The BPC retains the right to refuse renewal of registration or remove a Registrant’s name from the Register should we consider a Registrant has failed to adequately fulfil our CPD requirements or our annual declaration.

Clinical and general CPD examples
Clinical CPD requires Registrants to present and discuss their work within a clinical forum where the reflection and discussion of the work is psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic, and is appropriate to the level of intensity of clinical practice. This can be face-to-face, via videocall, teleconferencing or telephone.

A minimum of 15 clinical hours per year is required. If a Registrant is registered in more than one category (e.g. adult and couples) the number of hours required is a minimum of 15 clinical hours in their main area of work plus an appropriate number of hours in any additional category.

Types of clinical CPD activities that would be suitable include, but are not limited to:

• Individual supervision
• Group supervision
• Clinical consultation
• Peer group consultation

Registrants are also required to keep abreast of contemporary issues in psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic thought and practise. This encourages those involved in the wider professional context alongside patient work. Registrants are required to demonstrate a range of activities that have clear psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic relevance. Other activities are acceptable and may be included where they have direct relevance to clinical practice such as training in data protection or practical issues in running a clinical practice. Registrants are expected to complete a range of activities; so, for example, only one activity of 15 hours spent on attending a single conference would not be sufficient.

Types of general CPD activities that would be suitable include, but are not limited to:

• Attendance at clinical seminars, conferences, lectures, workshops, CPD events, study days, and discussion groups where this involves a psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic focus
• Further training where this involves thought about psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic theory and practise
• Publishing papers, book reviews, conducting research or giving presentations of psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic relevance
• Preparation involved in psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic or psychodynamic teaching, tutoring or mentoring (but not teaching itself)
• Reading psychoanalytic / Jungian analytic and psychodynamic journals and articles
• Learning or training in ethical issues, relevant legislature or policy, and good practice guidelines (such as, equality and diversity, data protection etc).

Recording your CPD
The BPC does not have specific requirements on how you should record your CPD, but recommend that you keep note of your hours throughout the year in a clear and easily accessible way such as a spreadsheet or editable document, with date, hours completed, activity title (such as conference name) and a short description of the activity. This will aid you in completing the audit form if selected and also enable you to keep abreast of the CPD you have been completing throughout the year. In addition, should a Fitness to Practise complaint of concern be raised against you, you may wish to submit this document to the Screening Committee or Fitness to Practise Committee as evidence of remediation.

Not met CPD required hours
If you have been unable to complete the required CPD hours due to unforeseen circumstances, please contact hello@bpc.org.uk as soon as possible and provide us with further information regarding your circumstances. You will still be required to complete the CPD audit form to the best of your ability, if chosen for audit, and you should include an explanation as to why you have not met the requirements. This information will be passed onto the audit panel for consideration.

Countersignature
You will need a countersignatory for your registration. The countersignatory must have heard your work and can agree they do not know any reason why you cannot continue to be registered. They do not have to be your regular supervisor but must have heard enough about your work from you to be able to make that declaration. Your countersignatory cannot be your partner, close friend or relative.

Normally, we expect your countersignatory to be psychoanalytically qualified for at least five years and be a current BPC Registrant from the psychoanalytic/Jungian analytic part of the register. In exceptional circumstances, we will accept countersignatories registered with another PSA-accredited registers such as UKCP, ACP and BACP. BACP registrants must be BACP accredited to act as a countersignatory. In other exceptional circumstances, we might accept a BPC Registrant not from the psychoanalytic/Jungian analytic part of the register.

If your countersignatory does not meet the above criteria, you will need to send us an email after you have submitted your renewal form to explain why. If your countersignatory does not meet the above criteria, and has not changed, but was approved last year by the Chair of the Professional Standards Committee, you do not need to contact us again.

Our requirements for countersignatories are currently under review as we appreciate they might not be achievable in all circumstances. This review is likely to take some time, and we will notify Registrants of any changes to our requirements as soon as we can.

Countersignatories
If you have been asked to countersign a registration, there are no further steps for you to complete at this stage. We may contact you to confirm your countersignature in the future, and if the Registrant is selected for the 2023 audit.
You are eligible to be a countersignatory if you are currently on the BPC register or other approved register in the appropriate category and have heard the registrant present their own work.

If you have any further questions about CPD please contact us at hello@bpc.org.uk.